


Promise

by audramh



Category: Outlander (TV) RPF
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:14:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24655165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audramh/pseuds/audramh
Summary: Published on Tumblr April 29, 2020[A Sam/Cait one-shot about one man's need to tell the world]
Relationships: Caitriona Balfe & Sam Heughan, Caitriona Balfe/Sam Heughan
Comments: 8
Kudos: 54





	Promise

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: SHIPPERY CONTENT  
> Firmly rooted in the belief that Outlander's two lead actors are, and have been, together since before the show's premiere.  
> If that's not your view, do be a lamb and keep it to yourself.

Sometimes he needed an outlet. A way to put their truth out into the universe. And when he did, she indulged him because she understood what was in his heart.

She understood that he had a breaking point now and then, when the burden became too heavy. It was easier for her not to show her hand, to compartmentalize the personal from the public facade. He'd joked about it, chiding her for lacking a "moral core". That wasn't really it, though; somehow, it was just easier for her to present two selves than it was for him. To her, they could exist separately. To him, one came at the expense of the other.

Years ago, when things were simpler, he'd started small. Thoughtful, sweet, and sentimental things for only her. The morning after she'd said yes, she found a tiny folded note in her makeup bag. Thinking it a misplaced receipt, she opened it with her toothbrush wedged between her teeth. Excitedly, in all caps, he'd written: "I'M GOING TO MARRY YOU!! xx" She still had that note, tucked safely away.

They used to play Scrabble, back when time felt slower and the evenings were quiet. They took turns keeping score under the initials B and H. Once, when they both knew it was her turn, he'd snatched up the score pad while she shook the bag full of tiles. She'd watched his face soften into the grin of an adolescent as he wrote their names and slid the pad to her along with the pen. In return, her brow furrowed as she saw two sets of three letters: FMH and FMB. She'd tried to decipher them, tried to match gutter-wits with the naughty face before her. "So I'm 'Fuck Me Hard', and you're -- what -- 'Feel My Balls', is that it?" He'd laughed. "Balfie, I'm hurt!" He wasn't really hurt. He was still beaming: "'Future Mrs. Heughan." She felt herself melting into sentimental goo. "Aww, babes!" She pointed to the other acronym and waited for the answer with crinkled eyes. He'd lowered his chin and bashfully looked up at her. "'Future Mr. Balfe.'" God, she loved this ridiculous human being. She saved that unused score sheet, tucked safely away.

As time went on, he found outlets everywhere. There was the secluded beach in Costa Rica, where he'd painstakingly crouched along the shoreline until he had written: "I L♡VE MY WIFE AND MY WIFE L♡VES ME" in the wet sand. She'd giggled at his display of showmanship, arms stretched out wide over his creation: "Ta-daaa!" They'd stood guard over their truth until the tide had moved in and taken it out to sea. They'd both forgotten to snap a photo, but no matter. The sea held the grains of sand that formed those words, tucked safely away.

Sometimes his outlet came in the form of a mutual guarantee. After the shock of their last interview with Kristin Dos Santos had worn off, but not the heaviness she felt in him, he had held her one night in bed. "Promise me", he pleaded. "When all of this is over, promise me that we'll sit back down with KDS and do our level best to right everything." His voice was so low it was almost a whisper, and its desolate tone made her swallow hard. "I promise", she'd assured him in a voice that barely made a sound. He squeezed her tighter. She kept that as-yet-unfulfilled promise, tucked safely away.

He had shouted it several times into the screaming wind. The first had been at the top of a munro which may or may not have had a name (they'd bagged too many to keep track). He had emptied all the breath from his chest in declaration to the world below: "I AM THIS LADY'S HUSBAAAND!" She had doubled over in a fit of giggles, having half expected him to burst into "The Hills Are Alive". He'd laughed too, and urged her on: "Your turn! Come on, do it!" She side-eyed him, filled her lungs, and shouted: "HELP MEEE, I'M THIS LUNATIC'S WIIIFE!" His hands met in a fast, exuberant *CLAP!* as the laughter tumbled out of him. The wind carried their messages wherever it traveled, invisible and tucked safely away.

Once, after far too much whisky, and well after midnight, he'd grabbed her by the hand and led her to the roof of their building. With his arm around her, he'd "introduced" his wife to the few faceless people they glimpsed in the street below who were far enough away not to hear anything but the rustling leaves under their feet. "Oh hullo there, sir. I don't recall havin' had the pleasure o' introducin' ma gorrrgeous wife to ye. Sir. Yoo hoo. Up here, sir. Weel, I can see yer too busy to be arsed to look up, so feck ye all the same." She poked his ribs for it and giggled as she always did when his proper English accent unfurled into a broad Scottish burr. The dark Glasgow night kept secret his drunken rooftop declaration, tucked safely away.

She didn't know all the times or places he'd revealed their truth, though. There was the £5 note he'd scribbled it on at Heathrow before he exchanged it for something to read on the plane. The hotel in Ibiza, where he'd signed for room service as "Mr. Balfe". The Four Seasons Resort Hualalai, where he'd declared it in a note that he managed to tuck in the tiny margin of a door jamb while she read her book on the lanai. The taxi in Budapest, where he scrawled it between the lines of a magazine article he couldn't read. A wall advert in the Paris Metro, a coaster in a crowded bar in Tokyo, the underside of a chair cushion at Club 33... all held bits and pieces of their truth that he had to let out when doing so was his only available airway.

She knew he needed outlets now and then. She just didn't know how often he depended on them. He would tell her one day how he had managed to tell the truth over and over and over, in every place they'd ever been.

Just as soon as a certain promise was fulfilled.


End file.
